Aloha Tiki Tribe!
if you have ever been to the Royal Kona Resort, and hung out in the lobby - open air Mai Tai bar, and listened to the older gentleman play some classic exotica tunes on the Vibraphone - well the Royal Kona Resort just threw him a 90th B Day party!

Aloha Tiki Tribe!
So I loved that movie "The Bucket List". Recently I broke down during a late night painting session and discovered I needed the right music to work to. Yes I often listen to Exotica, old and new, but I still have a love for heavy Metal - being a child of the 70's from the wilds of the midwest - Nebraska, (where growing up, like all good little mid-western boys I listened to hard rock and that was all. I thought Rob Halford, the lead singer for Judas Priest, was the Voice of God) Anyways, later on I discovered TIKI , and Exotica and have greatly expanded my musical tastes. But, I still have a love of the heavy metal. In that area, I had a loyal obsession with Alice Cooper, -(where growing up, like all good little mid-western boys I thought Alice Cooper was a real witch and we were afraid to play his really spooky songs like "Black Juju" at midnight because the urban legend was it'd summon a evil spirit. This made for many a exciting and amusing sleep over.) So anyways I had all Alice coopers Albums...and I mean ALBUMS with real records inside them, and big beautiful art on the outside. So...when they stopped making records and made CD's I was angry that the "MAN" was gonna make me buy all my collection AGAIN. So for many years I didn't. I just went with out my late night midnight playing of "Black Juju" hoping to summon some creative Juju. Well, back to the Bucket List. As I reached middle age I found out I better do some things, or maybe I will not get a chance to do these things. One was get my collection back - I was over on Maui and listening to Alice Cooper's radio show. He's funny, and seems to be part of my "Hawaii experience" now. So I made a list of all the albums I had, then found out Alice had kept on making albums after he came back from a drinking problem... it's a big list. Instead of calling it my "Bucket list" I call it my "Fuck It List". Cause, Fuck it, I want to hear the tunes I miss, or have not discovered yet. Heck, all my beloved exotica is on CD. So, I'm getting them ... AGAIN.... thank goodness for the net, and buying stuff on line. I just got a cool double album set yesterday in the mail. "Brutal Planet" & "Dragon Town".

Boy, my inner midwestern little kid is so happy, Alice really RAWKS!

There might be a Alice -Tiki-Low-brow art painting coming up.
Im thinking of a low-brow Tiki-Art portrait of Alice Cooper: on the beach in Maui, with the ultra-kitsch ala Walter Stanley Keane's style of Big Sad Eyes... funny? Yes? HMMM, IS MARK RYDEN DOING Walter Stanley Keane? Never really thought about it, but I think he is! Wow that is very low-brow!

Brad's Imaginary Art Muse Sez:
"Well now, I think maybe all this naughty Alice Cooper Shock-Rock-N-Roll is giving you a potty mouth.
'Cause I don't remember you using the "f" word after listening to your "The Exotic Sound of Martin
Denny" or "The Exotic Moods of Les Baxter" CD sets all night."

ALOHA TIKI TRIBE!
The MUGS!
Holy Tiki, these came out so great! It's amazing to see the 3-D interpretation of 2-D art, some thing I find endlessly fascinating... and wow... after a year of creating, and getting the OK , and having 3 companies come together... Here's some shots of them at my studio before I took them to the gallery. These are a special signed and numbered sub set of the big run. 100 signed and numbered, through the Kona Wyland Gallery only.

Aloha Tiki Tribe! Before I took the MUGS over to the gallery, I was getting some more prints ready to sell there - they ran out of "Forbidden Island" again. So, I Got back from the Printer, picked up some REALLY beautiful "Giclees" (fancy-smancy french word for Art Print) on paper...and heard the GREAT news that my printer - one of the very best on THIS island, maybe all of the islands, and from what the curator of "La Luz De Jesus Gallery in LA told me, maybe one of the best in the art business, well, he's NOT moving off island now!! Oh, I am so happy to hear that! Big Mahalo to the tiki gods who fixed it so he's stay here on the Big Island! and Big ALOHA! _________________

Brad's imaginary Artist's Muse sez:
"I told BR to shut up and just show some process & art. Guess it all starts with Inspiration… it started with Greg Browning showing his contest short-film entry. The film won 1st place. That inspired the low-Brow Tiki-Art painting. That inspired the 3 tiki-mug set, which was also given a green light when three companies held a meeting at DEMA (a big scuba dive convention in Vegas) last year to talk about the project. Everyone remembered it also happened to be Body Glove's 60th anniversary. That inspired the very best designs that Brad could make. Tiki Farm's amazing work at keeping all Brad's detail seemed also to be above and beyond the creation of a Tiki Mug. Then, Brad's art agent, Abbas was inspired to market the mugs with something that had never been done - a party; a BIG one, here in the little town of Kona. The folks in town flipped over the idea. The party became two nights of party. The Mai Tai Bar venue wants to create a new drink called "a Creature". The local radio stations want to promote it fully a month in advance. The gallery is taking out ads in the paper. The owners of Body Glove said they'd love to come, and bring the Sea Creature too. So did the mayor of the big Island. Lot's of Aloha going on. Good stuff."
_________________
Brad (Tiki Shark) Parker
"Brad Parker creates lurid paintings that pull in influences from tiki, comics, and rock."
- Honolulu Magazine "The Best Of" 2012 Issue
http://www.tikishark.com

Very cool Brad! The party is going to RAWK! Hey do my eyes deceive me, they didn't follow your instructions on that outside toe being the longest on the Creature mug. But there still bad ass mugs! Looking forward to getting my set in Oct.

Wow, someone really was reading my art blog - you are so right, there is tons of detail, but, well, actually I do like how the tiki-mugs clawed feet look more than my drawing, and maybe the out side toe is shorter, or longer, I guess how the creatures foot is turned, a bit of a toss up, I do really dig how his clawed feet are really clutching that skull! - However, it still looks better than I ever dreamed it could look! I'm so happy the tiki tribe is watching and , I hope, enjoying this as much as I am.
Aloha, and thanks again!

Aloha Tiki Tribe!
Working on the big surreal "Tiki Lounge / She-Bat Super hero / Crazy Al as a Zombie", painting again! Weeee! - good fun to be working on another piece... that is about 1 3rd done already !

_________________
Brad (Tiki Shark) Parker
"Brad Parker creates lurid paintings that pull in influences from tiki, comics, and rock."
- Honolulu Magazine "The Best Of" 2012 Issue
http://www.tikishark.comBrad's Imaginary Art Muse Sez:
"MMMM, I Think you were a little late to make the "She-Bat book. ,by about 7 months!
....Oh well, it still looks darned good, BUT, I do think you will need a shorter title"

Aloha Tiki Tribe!
Some one asked what was all that stuff on the shelf in my studio -
Actually, after I read that some of my artist heroes, like Tim Hilderbrandt
and Berni Wrightson, and Mark Ryden have huge collections of
toys and skulls and many odd objects of Art, I felt the desire to have one as well.
It's my collection of POP Culture Art, of course, showing my personal tastes.
Or Certified Reference Materials used for the calibration of an apparatus,
An antique is a collectable that is old.
A curio is a small, usually fascinating or unusual item sought after by collectors,
A "manufactured" collectable is an item made specifically for people to collect.
Also, collectables have played an important role in tourism, in the form of souvenirs.
Another important field of collecting that is also big business is memorabilia.
Ephemera from historical, media, or entertainment events,
items that were meant to be thrown away but were saved by fans
and accumulated by collectors.
Collectables are items of limited supply that are sought for a variety
of reasons including a possible increase in value.
Obscure items.
Enthusiasts will often try to assemble a complete set of the available variations.
A souvenir (from French, for a remembrance or memory),
memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a
person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it.
The term souvenir brings to mind the mass-produced kitsch
that is the main commodity of souvenir and gift shops in many
tourist attractions around the world.
The object itself has no real significance other than the psychological
connection the possessor has with the object as a symbol of past experience.
Without the owner's input, the object's meaning is invisible and cannot be articulated.
Similar to souvenirs, memorabilia (Latin for memorable (things),
plural of memor&#257;bile) are objects treasured for their memories;
However, unlike souvenirs, memorabilia are valued for a connection to an event.
Examples include sporting events, historical events, culture, and entertainment.
In Japan, souvenirs are known as meibutsu.
Kitsch (a loanword from German) is a style of mass-produced art
or design using cultural icons.
As a descriptive term, kitsch originated in the art markets of Munich in the 1860s
and the 1870s, describing cheap, popular, and marketable
pictures and sketches.
In Das Buch vom Kitsch (The Book of Kitsch), Hans Reimann defines
it as a professional expression “born in a painter's studio”.
Hermann Broch argues that the essence of kitsch is imitation: kitsch
mimics its immediate predecessor with no regard to ethics—it aims to
copy the beautiful, not the good.
According to Walter Benjamin, kitsch is, unlike art, a utilitarian object
lacking all critical distance between object and observer; it "offers
instantaneous emotional gratification without intellectual effort, without
the requirement of distance, without sublimation".
Interesting. Cool Swanky Swag.
Aloha! ...for all your aloha and support!
Brad Tiki-Shark Parker
The Brian Setzer response to "Pacific Rim"? Man, I LOVE Brian Setzer! Only Brian could write a song called "GO-GO GODZILLA"!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo7VWqcqJ3M

Aloha Tiki Tribe! BIG NEWS! I love reading pulp novels. I grew up on the adventures of The Shadow, and Tarzan, Conan, Batman... all the figures of pop-culture that are going into my art. But, there were not very many Tiki Pulp books. None really! So I was talking to a writer friend about how to fix that... and here is the first Draft! This book will use every piece of my art, plus some new ones, and be an Tiki-pulp story in the time period of the first wave of Tiki-mania; the late 40's to early 50's or so, in weird wild Waikiki. The crazy time after the War, when Hawaii wasn't yet a state, and there were many crazy unlawful, and even unnatural things going on, ...oh yeah, this will be a real Tiki Noir adventure! It is going to be called "Atomic Dreams in the RED TIKI LOUNGE"! _________________

Aloha Tiki Tribe! Hey, those who wait, ..may miss out. The Body Glove Tiki-Mugs are a limited edition, and the gallery is taking a record number off pre-orders! They really came out even better than I thought they would. The Big Tiki-Mug release Party is this Oct. However, I humbly suggest you pre-order your set now!
Please contact
Wyland Kona Oceanfront Gallery
75-5770 Alii Dr
Kailua Kona, HI 96740-1782
Phone – (808) 334-0037
Toll Free – (888) 435-6612
Email - jillw@Wylandbigisland.comEmail – artexpert@hawaii.rr.comBig Aloha!

Please note I screwed up the e-mail address for the Wyland Kona Ocean Front Gallery!
HUGE apologies if you could not reach them.
I know they have been taking a crazy amount of pre-orders on the mugs on the phone...
the RIGHT e-mail address is to the really great and wonderful Jill Weiss at jillw@WylandBigIsland.com